


Watch the Queen Conquer

by morgaine2005



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Hellenistic Religion & Lore
Genre: (but since the Underworld is a major setting I don't think archive warnings apply here), (namely Sisyphus), (twice in fact), Canonical Character Death, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Sisyphus myth, The other gods just make brief cameos, You should mainly just be here for Hades & Persephone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 00:11:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18304322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgaine2005/pseuds/morgaine2005
Summary: When Sisyphus captures Hades, it is high summer. That is his first mistake.





	1. In the Cellar of Sisyphus

Hades, Host of Many, Well-Intentioned, the Rich One, was quite certain that he had never been in a more undignified situation in his life.

He could live with that. Any life, even an immortal one, was bound to have its share of undignified moments. Of those moments, one had to be the worst. It was as simple as that.

What Hades was not certain he could live with was the knowledge that this was not only the most undignified moment in _his_ life, but also in the lives of all the deathless gods. When he considered some of the scrapes that they (Zeus) had gotten into, that was much harder to live with.

Yet live with it he must, for though Hades was the King of the Dead he was not, in fact, capable of dying himself.

He closed his eyes and barely bit back a groan.

His head thunked against the pillar he was chained to. At least he had could do that much0. Though the strength of a god ought to have been more than a match for any mere pillar, the chains that bound him to it were a different story. Those were too strong for any god to break.

And Hades had put them on himself!

With nothing better to do, locked in this dark, damp cellar, he occupied himself by brooding over how he had gotten into this predicament. Starting with the request of his brother Zeus. There was a mortal, a king, who had been giving Zeus trouble. Slaying guests at his table, betraying sacred hospitality, that kind of thing. If Hades could possibly take this mortal and chain him up in Tartarus, Zeus would be _ever_ so grateful.

Hades had little need for Zeus’s gratitude, but … it was summertime in the mortal realm, and a walk in the sunshine would do him good. Or so he told himself. There was no need, here and now, to reflect on the _real_ reason why Hades had left his dark kingdom.

So, Hades had taken up his cap of darkness and the chains of death, had given Thanatos very precise instructions on the feeding and walking of Cerberus, and had ventured into the mortal realm, traveling to the city of Ephyra. There, he had met with its king, Sisyphus. He had made plain his business, namely, to take said king and lock him up in Tartarus for various crimes against the gods.

And that was when things had begun to go wrong.

Most mortals would have screamed or wept or begged when presented with Hades himself informing them, in his blasé and straightforward way, that their time in this realm was up and that the fate that awaited them below would not be a kind one. Not Sisyphus. His eyes had gone wide for a moment, but then he was all humility, all graciousness. He was honored, he had said, truly honored that none less than the King of the Dead had come to claim him. And given such honor, he could not, in fairness, simply set aside what he was doing and come with Hades.

“No, no,” he had said, “this is a momentous occasion, a truly momentous occasion. Come with me.” And with that, Sisyphus had taken Hades by the elbow and led him deeper into his palace. “Merope! (You must meet my wife, Rich One, truly a _gem_ among women.) Merope, my darling, prepare a feast. For we have with us tonight,” Sisyphus had let go of Hades only to present him to the terrified-looking woman with a flourish, “a _most_ honored guest.”

Hades should have put a stop to things right then and there, chained Sisyphus up and _gone_. But … the woman had looked so terrified, and Sisyphus had been so welcoming, and really, when compared with the endless stretch of eternity, what was a few hours? He might as well allow Sisyphus to enjoy a proper send-off.

(Now in the cellar, Hades reflected that whatever Sisyphus had done to upset Zeus, breaking the sacred law of hospitality was almost certainly not it. There was probably a nymph involved. With Zeus, there nearly always was.)

So Hades had stayed his hand and allowed himself to be feted and feasted. After all, when was the last time such a thing had happened to him? He was not the sort of god that either gods or mortals looked forward to seeing. If gods had had birthdays, he was fairly certain only Hestia would have remembered his.

(Well. Not _only_ Hestia. But Hades was investing a great deal of energy into not thinking of _her_ , so think of her he did not.)

The feast – a feast at which Hades was the guest of honor, and really, when did _that_ ever happen? – went deep into the night. And for once, people had seemed … glad to be with him. He had passed around his cap of darkness, and the mortals were taking turns putting it on and disappearing under it. Some of the braver ones were asking what his realm was like, what were the heroes like, was there _really_ anything in the Eleusinian mysteries, and was his dog really named Spot. Hades was doing his best to answer, simply but thoroughly and accurately, which was more difficult than it generally was, owing to the quantity of wine he had drunk.

It was during a lull in this back-and-forth when Sisyphus had turned the conversation to his fate. “So,” he had said, filling Hades’s cup for the Olympus-only-knew-what time, “did I hear you correctly, earlier, when you said that I was to be chained up and flung into Tartarus?”

“Not flung,” Hades had replied, “I don’t fling. And you must understand, it’s nothing personal. It’s _never_ personal,” he’d added to the room at large. “I’m not that type of god. But you see, Zeus …”

“Is?” Sisyphus’s eyes had glittered for a moment before he piously averted them. “Although, of course, none of us can argue with Father Zeus. Still, I must admit I am very curious about these chains. Did you bring them with you, by any chance?”

Hades had. And like an idiot, he had shown them to Sisyphus.

“Fascinating,” Sisyphus had said, drawing the tip of one finger along one link in the chain. “But how do they work?”

Did mortals not have chains? Hades would have thought they would have invented them by now. But clearly they had not, so Hades had blithely (stupidly) proceeded to explain their use to Sisyphus.

But no matter how he phrased it, Sisyphus had shaken his head in what Hades took for confusion. “It’s no use,” he had said, finally. “You’ll have to show me. No, no, not on _me_ ,” he had said when Hades moved to chain him up. “How will I understand then? I need to see it, and I won’t be able to see if I’m chained up, now, will I?”

Hades had looked around the feasting-hall, trying to find a courtier or servant he could chain up to demonstrate. But before he could force the thoughts through his sluggish, drink-addled brain, Sisyphus had clapped him on the back like an old friend. “Ah, I know! You can demonstrate on yourself!”

“Eh?”

“Come, come,” Sisyphus had said, once again taking Hades by the elbow and once again steering him with what ought to have been a very troubling amount of ease. “We’ll go into the cellar – it’ll add to the feel of the thing!”

Hades had stumbled along in Sisyphus’s wake. There had been a small voice in the back of his mind clamoring that something was _not right_ , but it was mostly drowned by the wine.

Down they went, into the dark cellar that was used to store perishable foodstuffs and extra supplies. “Here!” Sisyphus had said, flinging his hand toward one of the many pillars holding up the ceiling. “Show me!”

There was no one else to demonstrate on, so Hades had demonstrated on himself. He had gamely wrapped the chain around himself and the pillar.

“Fascinating, fascinating,” Sisyphus had said. “But how will I not escape? Is it the weight of the chain?”

“Oh, no. There’s a lock.”

“A lock?” Sisyphus’s eyebrows had migrated toward his hairline. “Show me.”

Like a fool, Hades did. He brought forth the mighty padlock from his robes. He brought the key out as well.

“I see, I see. May I hold it? So you would put the curvy bit between the links – like this? – and then you turn the lock around …”

Hades realized a split second before the lock clicked shut what a colossal idiot he had been.

By that point, it was too late.

“Yeees,” Sisyphus had said, the lock now shut and the key clutched close in his hand. “Yes, I can see that will hold me very well.”

He had looked up, smirking. “And I take it will hold you as well, won’t it? Of course it will. I’ll leave you to it.”

And then he had turned on his heel and left. He hadn’t even had the decency to gloat and jape, giving Hades something to work with and perhaps free himself.

Once again, Hades groaned, and once again, he threw his head back against the pillar. This time, his skull reverberated with the force of the blow, and Hades welcomed it – the pain was a distraction from the self-recrimination.

Yet he had to wonder if he had hit his head too hard, for when next he breathed, he smelled something entirely unexpected. In this damp and musty cellar, where no mortal or immortal foot had trod since Sisyphus tricked him down here, there was the scent of … flowers?

Flowers and pomegranate …

Hades blinked and squinted – and squinted again, because, unless he was becoming deranged, he was sure he could see a glow on the stairs. It was not the flickering flame of a torch or candle. It was not the subterranean witch-light that gave the Underworld its signature glow. It was not sunlight and it was not moonlight.

What it looked like was the glow that surrounded the greatest of the gods, and a certain glow in particular – but that couldn’t be what he was seeing. _She_ couldn’t be coming to him yet; it wasn’t time. Her mother would strangle the pair of them.

The glow grew stronger.

Hades’s jaw fell, and if his heart had worked as mortal hearts did, it would have skipped a beat.

And there she was.

Hades licked his suddenly far-too-dry lips. “Persephone?”

She stood at the foot of the stairs in her full diminutive glory, sun-browned skin and wheat-gold curls, eyes as blue as the summer sky, berry-stained lips. Today she wore the short chiton favored by Artemis and her maidens, and her hair was loose and wild, restrained only by a woven crown of narcissus, asphodel, rosemary, and myrtle.

And as soon as her eyes fell on him, she breathed a sigh of relief. “ _There_ you are. I was worried about you.”

_She_ was worried about _him_? Somewhere above them was Sisyphus, a man clever enough to trap a god with his own chains, who turned Hades’s own strength against him, and _she_ was worried about _him_?

“You need to go,” Hades said, because those were the only words he could force through the rising panic in his mind. She needed to leave before Sisyphus realized she was here, because while Sisyphus might think he had Hades in his power now, if he realized that Hades’s _wife_ was here—

Persephone ignored that, her usual way of dealing with pronouncements from him that displeased her. Instead she frowned, tilted her head bird-like to one side, and crossed the short distance between them. “What on earth have you gotten yourself into? Are those _chains_?” Then a smirk, tossing her head back, hands on her hips and grinning up at him. “Hades, darling, if you wanted to be all tied up, you only had to ask!”

“This is not a joke!” Hades fought to keep his voice to a whisper.

That chased the smirk away. “No, it isn’t. Do you have any idea how worried everyone is?”

Hades very much doubted that “everyone” was worried, and even if they were, that wasn’t important. “Persephone—”

“Thanatos came all the way to Eleusis to speak to me. He _braved Mother’s wrath_ to beg an audience. Nobody knew where you had gone! I had to talk to Helios to track you down!”

Hades winced. _Idiot._ He’d been so distracted—

The self-recrimination melted away, perhaps because the source of his distraction and his short-sightedness was standing in front of him. He could admit it now; he had no choice. It had been an endless spring, and summer was not even half-over, yet it had already lasted an eon. So when Zeus had come to him about that troublesome mortal, Hades had thought about nothing but the chance to see Persephone.

Well, he was seeing her now. And he would have to be content with that, because that mortal was more troublesome than anyone had bargained for, and chained to a pillar or not, Hades would not let him get Persephone in his power.

“Persephone.” His voice was low as the deepest cleft in Tartarus, the voice he used as the dread King of the Dead to command his subjects. “You need to _go_. _Now_.”

It didn’t work, or at least, it didn’t work the way he had hoped it would. Persephone’s eyes clouded over, troubled; she rested a hand on his cheek. “Darling, what’s wrong?”

He sighed and closed his eyes, leaning into the touch. “The mortal—Sisyphus, the king here—he tricked me, got me to wrap myself up in my own chains, and, well.” Hades shrugged as well as the chains would allow. “The man could give Prometheus a run for his money. And if he realizes you are here—”

“He won’t. He’s asleep.”

“So? He probably has sentries by the dozens! When one of them spots you—”

“They’re asleep, too.” Persephone raised an eyebrow at him. “What, did you think I would come here without reinforcements? Hypnos has the entire palace under his spell.”

For a moment, Hades wanted to rail and protest that that wasn’t good enough, that a man as clever as Sisyphus was not going to be put off by mere sleep—

And then common sense returned, and the tension slipped out of him. Sisyphus might clever, but he was still mortal, and there was no mortal who could withstand Hypnos’s power.

Then Hades blinked. “Why Hypnos? Why not Thanatos?”

“Ah. Well. That gets us into the _other_ reason why everyone’s so worried about you.” Persephone wouldn’t meet his eyes, instead busying herself with straightening his tunic and brushing his hair out of his face. “Do you know how long you’ve been down here?”

Hades shook his head. There were no windows in this cellar, no cracks for sunlight or moonlight to sneak through, and he’d had no company since Sisyphus had left him.

“It’s been a week.”

A week? That was barely any time at all—

“And no one has died.”

Hades’s jaw fell.

Then he started to swear.

He continued until a raised eyebrow from Persephone silenced him. “Careful. Black feathers might suit the crow, but Mother would not be pleased were I to appear before her with black hair. Now, how can we solve this?”

“It’s the chains,” Hades explained. “They bind totally—not just the body, but the power as well. They’re the same chains that bind the Titans in Tartarus.”

“Tartarus?” Persephone’s eyes sparked. “Part of our realm.”

“Yes, but—no, wait, _don’t_ —”

Too late. Persephone had reached for the lock, no doubt to tear it off. Her fingers barely brushed it when a blue zap of lightning shot out. Persephone jumped back with a yelp, blowing on her fingers. “What in Tartarus?”

“The chains,” Hades explained, “can only be removed by me. Or the key.”

“By _you_?” Persephone’s nostrils flared. “I am Queen of the Underworld. Your wife. Your _equal_.”

“Ah, but these chains weren’t forged for the King of the Underworld.” Despite himself, a smile poked at the corner of his lip. “They were forged for _me_.”

Once again, Persephone cocked her head to one side.

Hades sighed. “During the war. The Cyclopes made them for me to use to bind the Titans.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice. Persephone never asked many questions about the war. Perhaps it was something she had learned at her mother’s knee, or perhaps she simply read his mood well enough to understand that there were some things no god wished to discuss.

Then she shot a tremulous half-smile at him. “And you had extras made?”

“There were some unexpected defections.”

Persephone put both hands on her hips and stared at him in that way she had – the way that made it quite clear that, despite the fact that he dwarfed her by a foot when they were both in their preferred forms, that she was looking down at him.

He sighed. “I had extras made.”

“That’s my Hades.” Her voice was light and fond, but only for a moment; then it was back to business. “You mentioned a key.”

“Sisyphus took it with him after he chained me up.”

“I thought you chained yourself up?”

Hades sighed. “It’s a … long story.”

“And you will tell me all of it, once we get you out of here. Sit tight. I’ll get the key and we’ll be gone.”

“You’ll—wait, no, _Persephone_!”

It was no use. She’d already turned on her heel and, nimble-footed as a nymph, raced up the stairs.

Leaving Hades alone.

He told himself that it didn’t bother him. The King of the Underworld was not one to be affected by loneliness.

Worry for his wife, however, was another matter.

So as the seconds ticked past, Hades told himself there was nothing to worry about. As they stretched into minutes, he reminded himself that Persephone was a grown goddess, his equal as she’d pointed out, and more than capable of taking care of herself.

As the minutes stretched into hours, Hades remembered how Sisyphus had beguiled him without even breaking a sweat, and reason fled him. He strained against the chains, ignoring the jolts and zaps that coursed through his body, because if Sisyphus had Persephone, if he was even _thinking_ of capturing her as he had captured Hades—

And then, as the edges of Hades’s vision grew red and his world shrunk down to the need to get to his wife, he heard the soft patter of bare feet hurrying down the cellar stairs, and there was Persephone.

“Hades, I can’t—” She stopped short, staring at him. Hades imagined the sight he made, red-faced and panting, holes burned in his tunic from the jolts and red welts burned on his chalk-white skin. “Are you all right?”

“Are _you_?”

She smiled, slowly and sadly, like a flower opening to the sun. “I’m fine. All the mortals are still asleep. But Hades, I couldn’t find the key. I was _sure_ he’d keep it on his person—”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Persephone’s eyes flashed like lightning. “It is _not_ fine,” she said. “I won’t worry about it, because I will get you out of here, but it is _not_ fine. But, Hades …”

She worried her lower lip, looking over her shoulder. “Eos is almost awake. I have to go; I may have, er, added a few herbs to Mother’s evening wine …”

Hades sagged in relief. “Darling. Go.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you wanted me gone.” Her tone was light, but the look in her eyes was anything but.

So Hades forced a smile. “I’ll feel better knowing you are far away from him.”

Persephone sighed, shook her head, and _tsk’d_ under her breath. “I’m not the one in any danger.” Her eyes narrowed. “And I _will_ get you out of here. If not by finding that thrice-damned key, then some other way.”

Hades blinked. And for the first time since that lock had snapped shut, he felt the treasure at the bottom of Pandora’s box alight in his breast.

He knew better than to argue with his wife when she got that look in her eye. She’d get him out of here, one way or another. All Hades had to do was wait.

And as the King of the Underworld, waiting was one thing he was _very_ , _very_ good at.


	2. In the Halls of Olympus

Helios’s chariot was at its zenith, and Zeus was alone in the hall of the gods.

A glass of nectar in hand, he stood between the pillars that stretched into the heavens and looked down upon the world. From here, he could not see all. But he could see enough.

Death itself had fled the world. The hunter fired his arrow, but though he hit his target, he could not bring down the quarry. Armies faced each other in battle, tore each other apart, and at the end of the day retreated in a tangle of severed limbs, an ocean of blood, and no fewer soldiers than they had started with. The sick groaned, eaten up by fever and boils, grew no better, and could not win release from their suffering. Sacrifices to the gods had ceased, for there wasn’t much point offering up a lamb or an ox if the lamb or ox would lumber off the altar even after being consumed by the flames.

Zeus frowned. What was Hades _doing_? He’d never known his brother to shirk his duties like this. Even in the dust-up that had come from his marriage, Hades had never once ceased his work. Demeter, yes, but Hades? Never.

Was Zeus going to have to go down to the Underworld and knock some sense into his brother? And _how_? Hades was the one who had more sense than the rest of them combined!

Zeus brought the cup to his lips, only to find it was empty. He made to throw it away, dash it against a column, _something_ to release this pent-up energy—

“Your Majesty?”

He stopped.

He turned.

Iris stood before him in her shifting gown of raindrops and refracted light. She bowed her head. “You have a visitor, my lord. Persephone, Goddess of Spring, Queen of the Underworld, requests an audience.”

Zeus blinked. “Kore?” he asked, the childish name slipping out of him without him meaning to. Then he shook his head. _Persephone_ , she was _Persephone_ now, had been for centuries. “Send her in.”

Of his many titles, the one he was most proud of was Father of the Gods. And no good father left his child waiting.

Iris nodded and withdrew. Zeus might have seated himself his golden throne, but he chose not to. Instead he moved to the hearth in the center of the room (Hestia’s perch, when the gods were in council) and absently stirred the embers.

“Father Zeus?”

Zeus turned around. “K—Persephone! What a—”

He paused. Something—something wasn’t right. It was high summer, but Kore— _Persephone_ —wore not a short chiton or a long peplos in a delicate floral shade, but a wine-purple peplos paired with a black himation. Her hair was up in a complicated confection of braids and ringlets. And while her crown was still in the shape of flowers, it was fashioned from platinum and set with rubies, sapphires, emerald, and amethyst.

Zeus blinked once, blinked twice, and rapidly rearranged his ideas of what this meeting meant.

It was high summer, yet Persephone stood before him not as the Goddess of Spring but as the Queen of the Underworld.

“… Daughter?” he asked.

“Father Zeus.” Persephone nodded to him, not a curtsey, not an obeisance, but a simple mark of respect from one monarch to another. “I need your help.”

“Does this have anything to do with the rather startling lack of death in the mortal world?” Zeus asked. Once again, he had to wonder what Hades was _doing_ , and how on earth he was going to get him to stop doing it and get back to his job.

“Yes. Hades is in trouble.”

Like a chariot-driver realizing he was about to drive off a cliff, Zeus pulled his racing thoughts to a screeching halt and swung them in a different direction.

Hades in trouble? His brother, the King of the Underworld, the holder of all the world’s riches? _That_ Hades? In _trouble_? The last time Hades had been “in trouble” had been when he was swallowed whole by Kronos – and that hadn’t been trouble, that had just been a temporary inconvenience.

“How—”

“He’s held fast by chains of death, tied to a pillar in the cellar of the King of Ephyra’s palace. He can’t break free. _I_ can’t break him free, either. We need …”

Persephone kept speaking, but Zeus had stopped listening. His mind had fixed on one phrase.

The King of Ephyra.

Ephyra.

_Son of Echidna._

“This king,” Zeus interrupted, aware his voice sounded dry and strangled but unable to do much to alter it in the moment. “His name—it wouldn’t happen to be Sisyphus, would it?”

Persephone didn’t answer. Instead her eyes narrowed. “Why does it matter?”

“I—er—you know I keep special watch over the kings of the world—”

“ _What did you do_?” The shout was loud enough to shake the foundations of Olympus; Persephone stepped toward him; the air crackled with static, and it wasn’t coming from him—

“Kore, Kore. Shush, little flower, hush.” Zeus caught Kore’s shoulders; the contact sent a shock through him which he ignored. “I swear by the Styx I meant your husband no harm.”

“So this is your fault!”

Zeus opened his mouth to deny it—

He thought better of it.

“… Possibly,” he admitted.

Persephone shook herself free of his grip. “What. Did. You. Do?”

“The mortal offended me.” Best not to get into _how_ ; right now, the only being likely to be less sympathetic to the _how_ was Hera, and it probably wouldn’t be by much. “All I wished was for Hades to, er, collect him and chain him up in …”

Zeus trailed off, another piece of the puzzle clicking into place. “You said Hades was chained in his cellar?”

“With chains of death,” Persephone replied, voice tight and shoulders tense. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“… Yes,” he admitted. “Although I have no idea how they ended up on Hades!”

“The mortal tricked him. Hades didn’t go into details.” She glared at him, eyes blazing with blue fire. “And they don’t matter! He shouldn’t have been there at all! Why didn’t you just send Hermes to take the mortal and let Hades deal with him once he was in the Underworld?”

Now, _that_ was unfair – Zeus hadn’t said anything about Hades going after the bastard Ephyrian himself; he hadn’t even considered the possibility that Hades would do that. Why _had_ Hades done that? Hades did his duty, but where Zeus’s requests were concerned, he was never particularly eager to please—

Never mind. Zeus knew _exactly_ why Hades had gone himself. And though he didn’t enjoy thinking of his own daughter in those terms, it was comforting to know that while Hades was the King of the Dead, he was in at least one very important aspect not dead himself.

Not that pointing that out would win him any sympathy from Persephone. Or if it did, it might be at the price of her turning her blame from him to herself.

His shoulders were broad. He could carry the blame.

“Because I was more concerned with seeing the mortal punished than worried about the logistics of how it was to be done. And we both know Hades.” Zeus reached to stroke Persephone’s cheek; she jerked back. Zeus let his hand fall. “He’s a master of logistics, daughter; that’s all I was going to say.”

“And now he’s chained in a cellar, and nobody can die, all because _you_ didn’t think things through.”

“Apparently so. And I’m sorry for it, and I’ll tell Hades as much once we get him out of there. Now, let me see—I suppose a thunderbolt to the palace—”

“No!” The yelp seemed to come from Persephone involuntarily; the way she grabbed his throwing arm as if to physically hold him back may have been involuntary too. “What would that do to Hades?”

Persephone’s grip on his arm was only just shy of painful, and for the first time Zeus saw fear in her eyes.

He patted her hand, and this time, she didn’t throw him off. “He’d survive it. But you’re right. We’ll leave thunderbolts as a last resort. I suppose Hephaestus—”

“There’s a key,” Persephone interrupted. “The mortal has it. I searched him last night but couldn’t find it. I—” She stopped, her gaze falling on the hands that were still clinging to him. She let go and took a full step back.

Zeus didn’t sigh, even though he wanted to.

“The mortal—he’s clever. He probably the key well-hidden.” Persephone addressed the polished marble floor at first, but midway through her speech, she took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye. “We need to force him to give us the key, or to set Hades free himself and give him the key back.”

“That … that would be one way of going about it,” Zeus agreed, even though he thought having Hephaestus figure out a way through the chains would be simpler. “However, since we can’t credibly threaten the mortal with death, and even if we could, killing him wouldn’t get us the key—”

Persephone’s gaze hardened. “Are you telling me that Zeus, King of the Gods, can’t bend _one_ mortal to his will without resorting to killing him?”

Well. When Persephone put it like that … and when Zeus thought on it further, he realized how unsatisfying setting Hephaestus on the problem would be. It would get Hades free, no doubt, but it would not teach this mortal a lesson.

It would not teach _any_ mortals a lesson.

And a transgression this grave required an equally grave lesson.

He nodded briskly. “You’re right. Getting the mortal to produce the key is the best way forward. However …” He looked around the throne room, stroking his beard. “I think it would be best if I called in some backup …”

He turned back to Persephone. “Will you stay, daughter? You might not be one of the Twelve, but you and your husband are the equals of any god or goddess who is; you know that.”

“N-n-no,” Persephone stammered, her gaze darting to one of the golden thrones – the one carved all over with wheat and barley, the one with a clever little pocket on the side for the holding of a sickle. “Mother—Mother doesn’t realize that I …”

“Understood,” Zeus replied, even if he mentally promised himself to have _words_ with Demeter when this was over. To require Persephone to spend half her time in the mortal world was one thing; she had duties, spring and summer could not happen without her. To insist that Persephone revert to her girlhood and neither see nor think about her husband while she did so was quite another.

Zeus glanced at one of the thrones next to his, the one with a back that fanned out like a peacock’s tail, studded with jewels. Maybe he’d let Hera do it. Marriage and family were, after all, her domain.

“And Persephone—” he began to say, turning back to his daughter.

She was gone.

He sighed. And since there was no one there to see him, he let his shoulders slump and a frown cross his face.

But only for a moment. Soon his back was straight again, and though the frown did not leave him, his eyes held not rainclouds but thunderclouds.

He was Zeus, King of the Gods, and right now, he needed to rule.

* * *

 The council of the Twelve was rarely unanimous in anything, but in this matter, their agreement was almost immediate. A mortal could not be allowed to have power over a god, and he certainly could not be allowed to think himself the master of the lord of one-third the universe. Even Demeter agreed that Hades must be rescued and avenged, and swiftly, for few understood the necessity of death better than the goddess who brought life to the fields.

The only dissenting voice was Athena’s, and her dissent was not over the question of whether to act, but how. “Why send an army when an arrow will do?” she asked. “Give the mortal a chance to repent. Send Hermes to him, inform him that Hades must be freed at once, or the mortal will taste our wrath as none has tasted it before. And while we wait for Hermes to return, we can decide how we will avenge ourselves on this mortal, should he refuse our merciful offer.”

The gods agreed that this was wise counsel, and Hermes was sent from the halls of Olympus to the palace of Ephyra.

The mortal, Sisyphus, seemed to expect something like his. He was all smiles and welcome, perfectly content to release Hades, or so he said, _if—_

Hermes cut him short. There would be no _if_ s. This was not a negotiation. The only acceptable response was unconditional surrender.

Sisyphus did not surrender.

Hermes returned to Olympus, and battle was joined.

First, Dionysus, youngest of the Twelve, struck. Half the wine in the kingdom became sour and undrinkable. The other half became so potent that no matter how well-watered the wine was, anyone who tasted it grew drunk after a single cup. This was no joyful drunkenness, either, instead being surly and belligerent or maudlin and melancholy. And the next morning, the drinkers’ heads ached as if Hephaestus himself was pounding them with his hammer.

Hermes came next, back in Ephyra almost before he had left it. The roads he turned into a veritable labyrinth so that no traveler could find their way. Merchants he made suspicious and skinflint, grinding commerce to a halt. He seemed to make thieves bolder, too, for every night a different part of Sisyphus’s palace was utterly ransacked.

The twins, Apollo and Artemis, attacked together. Apollo withdrew the light of reason and intellect from the men and women of Ephyra and cursed every instrument to send out only noise. He ordered the Muses to strike every bard’s tongue dumb. Artemis called on the beasts of the forests and fields to stalk through the city streets, attacking all they might see. Because they could not be killed, they could strike with impunity, for no matter how grievously the hunters wounded them, Artemis healed their hurts, and there was no healing to be had for the hunters.

Aphrodite struck the city with all-consuming lust and with the same breath took away their ability to find satisfaction. No lovers found release in each other’s arms; no self-pleasure brought relief. For good measure, she sent her son Eros into the city with his arrows, which he fired with glee, ensuring that no love in the city was requited.

Hephaestus went to his workshop. There he stoked a new fire, one that he vented through the agora of Ephyra, turning what was a bustling market square into a hell of ash and smoke. Every forge-fire in the city he froze, and no weapon held its edge, no jewelry its sparkle, and no device its proper function.

Ares sent his children Phobos and Deimos into the streets of Ephyra, spreading fear and terror wherever they went. He went himself to the bravest and boldest, whispering in their ears that Sisyphus was the cause of all their sorrow, and if they only seized their courage and struck, they could deliver their city from the wrath of the gods and become themselves heroes.

Athena came next. She broke every loom in the city, made every artisan foolish and clumsy with their tools. Then she went to Ephyra’s wisest. She sat with them, reasoned with them, pointed out that no mortal could hope to stand against the gods. The only way to save their city was to overthrow Sisyphus.

Poseidon sent his waves to batter the docks night and day, climbing into the city and washing away goods, homes, people. The ships of Ephyra, no matter where they lay, he seized one by one, pulling them to the bottom and leaving the sailors to bob helplessly in the water, too far from shore to swim and unable to drown. And every day at noon, he struck his trident on the ground in the center of the agora, making the city shake down to its foundations.

Demeter withdrew her blessings from Ephyra and the surrounding countryside. Though it was high summer, no crops grew in the fields, no vegetables or fruits in the gardens. They did not wither and could not die with Hades bound, so instead, Demeter sent choking weeds to overtake the fields, weeds that, like the Hydra of Lerna, grew two more stalks for every one that frantic fieldworkers pulled from the earth.

Hera’s vengeance was subtle. She turned every marriage-bed in the city cold; no child would be conceived while Hades was bound. She twisted the love of husbands and wives, so that each saw only the flaws in their mates. Women who were pregnant felt the babes in their wombs go still and stop growing. Those who were laboring pushed and strove in vain.

And Zeus? Zeus was the least subtle of all. He covered the city in rainclouds and thunder; each lightning-flash blinding, each thunder-clap deafening. Whenever Sisyphus set foot outside his palace, lightning dogged his steps. No home in the city offered him succor or shelter; instead of sacred hospitality, all he received were doors slammed in his face.

Three days of this brought Sisyphus to his knees. The Twelve were amazed that it took so long.

* * *

When Hermes informed Zeus that Sisyphus had unconditionally surrendered, Zeus seated himself upon his throne. Once seated there, he could see and hear all that happened in his domain of heaven and the realm that he and his brothers shared, the surface of Mother Earth. All of the Twelve followed suit, knowing that Zeus would share his vision with them.

All would watch and make sure that Sisyphus kept his word.

While Sisyphus’s cellar was under the surface, it was not so deep that it passed into Hades’s domain; the Twelve could still see all that passed there.

Hades was looking rather the worse for wear. Zeus was surprised to see lightning-burns on his skin and holes burned through his garments. He would not have thought Hades the type to strain against chains he knew very well he could not break, but apparently Zeus did not know his brother as well as he thought he did.

Still, when Sisyphus entered the cellar with his terrified-looking wife clinging to his arm, the face Hades turned toward him was impassive, even a little bored. “Am I to have some company, then?”

Sisyphus scowled. “Your brethren on Olympus have ransomed you.”

“Ah, was that them I heard? I thought things were getting a bit noisy. They didn’t give you too much trouble, I hope?”

“They have demanded that I set you free – no negotiations, no conditions.” Sisyphus swallowed hard. “And I have agreed.”

With no further words, Sisyphus drew the heavy key from his robes – his wife grasped his arm more tightly, as if to hold him back – and fitted it into the lock. It turned smoothly; the lock fell open and the chains fell off Hades.

Hades nodded. “I thank you.” Even as his garments stitched themselves back together and the red welts faded from his skin, he held out his arm and snapped his fingers. Key, chains, and lock flew up his sleeve. He directed the hand to Sisyphus. “And my cap, if you please?”

Sisyphus sighed and held out the cap. Hades took it with a nod of thanks.

“And will you take me now, as you came here to do?” Sisyphus asked.

His wife choked on a sob.

Hades raised one eyebrow. “Oh, I think not. You deserve no such honor. Hermes will collect you shortly in the usual way. I suggest you get your affairs in order, if you have not already.”

The wife gasped and collapsed in tears; Sisyphus caught her and held her close, whispering in her ear. Zeus could have listened but chose not to. His attention was fixed on his brother.

Hades seemed to sense it, for he looked over his shoulder. Time and space meant nothing to gods who wished to communicate. Hades met the eyes of each of the gods of Olympus – his brothers and his sisters, his nieces and nephews – and nodded to them. It was not thanks, not exactly. It was an acknowledgement that a job had needed doing and had been done well.

Some of the gods shifted on their thrones, for such acknowledgement was more than they were in the habit of giving to Hades.

Hades met Zeus’s gaze last and held it longest. Obsidian eyes met sky-blue and neither blinked.

Then, slowly, Hades nodded to Zeus.

Zeus nodded back.

Hades put on his cap of darkness and was gone.


	3. On the Shores of the Styx

In the Underworld, there was no such thing as time or seasons. There was no sun, no moon. No birdsong or wolf cry to mark the hours. There was only the witch-light, the endless passing of the shades, and the murmur of the Styx.

Yet Charon, ferryman of the Underworld, always knew when the autumnal equinox approached. He could feel it in his bones. So when he looked up and saw his queen walking toward him, head held high and a small, secret smile on her face, he felt no surprise.

The shades milling on the shore did. New-dead, they were lost and confused, unable to measure the time that had passed in the world above without the sights and sounds they were accustomed to. Still, like a wave they parted before their queen, leaving the path between her and Charon’s boat open.

The queen did not walk down it, at least, not at first. She put her hands on her hips and surveyed the crowd of murmuring shades. “Has everyone got a coin?”

Silence. The queen did this every six months, but the shades never had any idea of how to answer. If Charon had not learned patience long ago, he would have sighed and thumped his head against his pole.

“Come now; don’t be shy. You need a coin to cross the Styx. Does everyone have one?”

Still, there was no answer. The shades huddled closer together, whispering.

The queen sighed; she had learned less patience than Charon. She crouched, her autumn leaf-colored peplos puddling in the dirt. She dug her fingers into the dusty Styx-soil and whispered something Charon was never able to catch.

Then in single fluid motion, she was back on her feet, her hands full of coins. “Come,” she said. “If you don’t have a coin, take one.”

Slowly, some shades began to move forward. In life, they had been beggars, the forgotten and the lost, those with no families who cared to give them proper burial. Some had loved ones but were so desperately poor that their families were forced to choose between paying the ferryman and feeding the ones who remained. Others had been travelers or sailors, caught in Poseidon’s wrath or Gaia’s fury, their bodies coming to rest far from any kind hands who could place a coin in the mouth to ease the lost one’s passage to the next life. Still more had been victims, done to death in darkness, bodies dumped where they would not be found and souls left to shift for themselves.

The queen paid for passage for them all. For to their king all the riches of the earth belonged, and what was his was hers, and what was theirs would be used for the benefit of their kingdom.

Charon watched, as he did every six months, leaning against his pole, and waited.

The crowd of shades around the queen slowly began to thin. Soon there was only a dozen left, then six, then three, then one. The one had his head bowed and stood slightly apart.

“There’s a coin here for you,” the queen said. She stepped forward and put a hand on the shade’s shoulder. “Come—”

The shade looked up.

Most would not have noticed, but Charon had been ferrying his queen across the Styx and back again for eons, and he could read her moods. In the space of a blink her eyes widened.

But her smile never faltered, and the coin she held out never wavered. “Come, friend. Let me pay your passage.”

The shade did not take the coin. Instead, it dropped to its knees and clutched the queen’s skirts. “Mercy, O Grave Queen, O Spring Maiden, for the love of the gods, mercy!”

The other shades assembled along the shore gasped, and as one they moved back, out of range of the goddess’s potential wrath. Charon barely restrained a yawn. This shade was hardly the first to beg for mercy that was not needed, and while the queen tended to be patient with these kinds of histrionics, it did not make the watching of them any less tedious.

Yet to Charon’s eyes, the queen was not as quick to reassure or comfort as she usually was. Oh, she still removed the shade’s hands from her skirts with a gentle touch, she still knelt at the shade’s eye-level. But her movements were slow, hesitant, almost wary.

“Why do you beg for mercy?” the queen asked. “There is no need to beg. The coin is in my hand; take it and cross.”

“Forgive me—forgive me. Grave queen …” The shade looked up. “Grave Queen, in life I was named Sisyphus, and I was king of a city that men call Ephyra.”

Charon’s jaw fell. _Sisyphus?!_ That was who was waylaying the queen? What should he do? Attack the shade? Call Cerberus to tear the shade apart? Call _Hades_?

As if she could read his mind, the queen caught Charon’s eye. Slowly and almost imperceptibly, she shook her head.

Charon gripped his pole more tightly and did not move.

The shade was still speaking, blubbering, really. “I was a king, but Grave Queen, you must understand—when I died, my wife, instead of burying me with honor, threw my body naked into the agora – no ceremonies, no respect, not even a coin for the ferryman! Can you imagine it? The disrespect? The impiety?”

“Impiety,” the queen repeated.

“You,” the shade grasped the queen’s shoulder, and were it not for the queen catching his eye again, Charon would have leapt from his boat and beat the shade with his pole, “you who are the daughter of Immortal Zeus, the wife of Dark Zeus, _you_ should understand better than anyone what impiety like this could do to the world, were it allowed to spread unchecked.”

The queen’s eyes were hooded; Charon could not guess her thoughts. “You’re right,” she said. “Impiety like this cannot stand. I will send the Erinyes to your wife; they will—”

“No, no, please, not that!” the shade cried out, and though shades’ voices were weak and reedy as a rule, _this_ echoed clear through the cavern and might echo all the way into the deepest pit of Tartarus until the very end of time. Unless Charon was very much mistaken, the shade sounded afraid.

“That—that is,” the shade stammered, “that—that response would not be necessary, O Generous One, but not necessary. Send me instead. Return me to life, so that I might teach my wife a lesson.”

The queen tilted her head to one side. “A lesson?”

“In—in respect. Piety. Wifely duty. That—that sort of thing,” the shade stammered.

“I see,” the queen murmured. “You ask a great boon, Sisyphus, who was once King of Ephyra. To return a shade back to life is no small thing.”

The shade bowed its head. With some chagrin, Charon realized that was the cleverest thing the shade could have done.

“And it will come with a cost,” the queen continued.

The shade looked up.

“Here,” the queen said. Once again she put her hand in the dirt and murmured something too low for Charon to catch. When she raised her hand, a stalk of star-flowered asphodel grew to meet it. The queen plucked one of the flowers, which the shade eagerly held out its hands for.

The queen drew her hands back. “Listen closely. You must take this flower and place it under the tongue of your body. Then lay your shade to rest in the body as if you were laying on a couch. Shade and body will fuse, and you will be alive again.”

“Yes, Grave Queen. Thank you, Grave Queen!”

Once again, the shade reached for the flower. Once again, the queen drew it back. “I am not finished. As long as you hold the asphodel flower in your mouth, you will live. Remove it, and you will die. And when you die, there will be no more returning. Your soul will belong to the Underworld forever.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Grave Queen, the poets will sing of your generosity for generations to come. Thank you, thank you!”

The shade reached for the flower, and this time, the queen let it take it. The shade caught the queen’s hand – Charon started forward – but all it did was kiss that hand before rising and running for the path back to the mortal world.

To his amusement, Charon noted that the shade didn’t look back once.

The queen, however, did not get up. Instead she watched the shade go, and Charon wished he could see her face – her back told him nothing.

He wished in vain. When the queen finally turned around (only after thoroughly wiping her hand on her peplos), she wore the same wide smile she wore every autumnal equinox. “Charon!” she said. She rose, hands outstretched. “It has been far too long since I saw you last. How are you?”

“It’s—it’s only been six months, my lady.” The usual reply came to his lips unbidden; the stammering was unintentional.

Yet habit soon took over, and Charon helped the queen into the boat and made sure she was seated comfortably before he pushed off from the shore and began to ferry them across the river.

“My … my lady?” he asked after a long moment, when he judged they were far enough away from either shore that they would not be overheard.

“Hmm?” she asked, tilting her head up at him.

“Are you sure that was wise?” he whispered.

She smiled at him. “Oh, Charon. You really are a softie at heart, aren’t you?” She gently patted his knee. “Don’t worry about me. Tell me instead how your summer has been.”

Charon sighed and shook his head.

Once again, he was realizing that no matter how many endless millennia passed, no matter how many times he ferried her across the Styx, no matter how many feasts he attended where the royal couple of the Underworld presided over the hall in grace and plenty …

He would never, _never_ understand his queen.

* * *

Hades was known throughout the mortal and immortal realms as an even-tempered king. He was slow to anger, never impulsive. Always he observed propriety and decorum. He barely raged, never yelled, and only rarely raised his voice.

There was, however, one place where he allowed emotions to show, where the infernal King of the Dead was known to shout to the heavens, and that place was the bedroom he shared with his wife.

Usually, however, the shouting was not like this.

“You did WHAT?”

Hades had been standing next to their four-poster bed. Now, he was gripping the nearest post in the hopes that it would hold him upright.

Persephone perched on the stool before her vanity. She sighed. “Hades …”

“What were you _thinking_?” he asked. He didn’t shout this time. He shouldn’t have shouted in the first place. “You know how dangerous he is!”

“He is,” Persephone nodded, “but you had to have noticed his shade wandering along the Styx shore—”

“Noticed? Of course I noticed! I knew the moment he got down here! I saw him wandering like a beggar, and I thought, ‘This has _trap_ written all over it,’ so I didn’t engage! What I don’t understand is—”

He stopped talking. He could see by her thoughtful frown, the bird-like tilt of her head, that Persephone was no longer listening.

She rose with the grace of springtime, crossed the room and laid one hand on his shoulder. The other brushed a curl away from his face.

Hades stared into her eyes and swallowed. They were so blue, sometimes he thought he would fall into them and drown, or perhaps fly. His feet would never touch the ground again, and it would be a delicious way to die.

“Persephone …” he whispered.

She smiled up at him and squeezed his shoulder. Her eyes narrowed. Before Hades could react, she was shimmying past him and clambering onto their tall bed. “Sit down,” she commanded.

“Darling, now is not the time—”

“Sit,” she said, and he sat.

Her small hands and clever fingers rested on his shoulders and instantly began to knead them. “You are in _knots_ ,” she pronounced.

“I’m sure, but— _oooooh …_ ”

“Just relax.”

Hades had little choice but to do as she said. He closed his eyes and leaned into bliss.

It was only once he began to feel even the deepest tension begin to slip out of him that Persephone began to speak again. “I know you don’t like the thought of him being near me, but I was never in any danger. Even if I wasn’t able to handle him, I’m pretty sure Charon would have beaten him bloody and tossed him into the Styx if he’d tried anything.”

“It’s not—oh, that’s good—what was I saying? It’s not physical danger I worry about—he didn’t put me into physical danger—but that man is too clever by half …”

“Mmm. Not as clever as he thinks he is.”

“Persephone. He tricked you into sending him back into the mortal world. Do you actually think he’ll lecture his wife and then meekly lay down to die?”

Persephone stopped her massage.

Before Hades could do more than blink, she pulled him flat on his back and pinned him to the bed. She leaned over him, her face upside-down, wheat-gold hair hanging over her shoulders. “You think he _tricked_ me?”

“I—yes?” Hades blinked. It was very difficult to focus, with her lips right above his eyes and her breasts hanging down just above his head, but focus he did. “The whole thing must have been a plot. He almost certainly told his wife to not bury him with honor, so he could …”

He stopped. Persephone was rolling her eyes. “Well, _obviously_ that bit was a setup. You should have seen his face when I threatened to set the Erinyes on her.”

Even though the Erinyes were his subjects and could attack no one without his implicit permission (or Persephone’s), Hades shuddered.

Persephone’s face softened. “I wouldn’t have done that. Not when I was fairly certain that the only reason she cast his body out the way she did was because he told her to. I … oh, Hades, come here.”

Hades was not sure how it happened, but in an eyeblink he was no longer sprawled half-on and half-off the bed, Persephone hovering over him, but instead fully on the bed, with Persephone curled up in the crook of his arm. Unconsciously, his grip on her tightened.

She purred and nestled closer. But she was not done talking. “Honestly, I did it for her as much as anything. I … I know what it’s like, to trust a man others say is dangerous, and to love him even when all the laws of gods and mortals seem to say you shouldn’t.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth.

Hades rolled onto his side to better see her and cupped her cheek with one hand. Persephone rested her hand on his and hummed.

But she was still not done talking. “Love has a hard enough time on earth, on Olympus, even here … in every realm, my darling. Shouldn’t we give it a chance when we can?”

_Yes,_ Hades thought, and kissed her forehead.

She laughed and leaned her head away from him. “That’s better. And besides, if Sisyphus thinks he’s getting the better end of this bargain, he’s mad. First, as long as he wants to remain alive, he has to keep an asphodel flower in his mouth.”

“Which you no doubt will find endlessly amusing.”

Persephone giggled. “Maybe a little. But more importantly …” She sat up on her elbow, face growing serious. Hades scrambled to remain on a level with her. “Once he tires of that and dies, his soul is ours. Forever.”

Hades frowned. Yes, that was normally the way of things …

Then he blinked.

“You won’t permit him to drink of the Lethe and return to the mortal world.”

“He made a deal,” Persephone shrugged.

Hades sighed. “You do realize this means we’ll need to put up with him for all eternity.”

“As if you would ever allow him to leave Tartarus once you got him trapped down there.”

“Now, by _that_ logic,” Hades smirked and rested a hand on her waist, “there was no need to send him back at all, since his soul was ours no matter what he did.”

“Sure there was. Before he might have railed against the fates, or Zeus, or you. Now? He has no one to blame but himself.”

Hades permitted himself a slow, dark chuckle. “Perhaps. But have I ever told you, wife, that you can be quite scary when you put your mind to it?”

“Mmmm … frequently, I believe. But now, husband …”

Persephone reached over to her shoulder and slowly unpinned one of the fibulae holding up her peplos. Hades recognized it – he’d commissioned it from Hephaestus about three hundred years ago – it was gold, set with rubies, and fashioned in the shape of autumn leaves. She always wore it when she came back to him.

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a _very_ long and lonely summer … and besides,” she drew her hand down his cheek, “our anniversary does only come once a year.”

Hades laughed and pulled her closer. “Whatever you say, my love. Now and always, I am all yours.”


	4. In the Depths of Tartarus

Sisyphus lived another thirty years, and when he died, it was on his own terms. He was found one cold winter’s morning clasping his wife, Merope, to his breast. Both were dead. The asphodel flower lay on the bedside table and crumbled to ash when Sisyphus’s daughter-in-law tried to pick it up.

The people of Ephyra buried Sisyphus and Merope with all due honor, for while Sisyphus had been a good king on the whole – any king clever enough to outwit the gods was more than a match for anything mortals could throw at him – none of them were too eager to have him back.

Sisyphus and Merope journeyed to the Underworld hand-in-hand; they gave Charon their coins and rode in his boat together. But at the far shore of the Styx, they were separated. No matter how strong one soul’s love for another was, each shade was judged alone, on their own merits.

And unlike most souls, Sisyphus was not even given a preliminary trial by the once-mortal judges Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus. No, he was directed straight to the hall of the king and queen themselves.

Were he still alive, he would have girded his loins and taken a deep breath. Shades, however, could do neither of those things, so he simply gathered his courage as well as he could.

This would be the last, greatest test of his rhetoric and cleverness. If he triumphed here, then men would speak of him as one of the great heroes from now until the world itself came to an end. If not … then to be forgotten would be a merciful fate.

There was no one in the hall but the deities themselves, Hades seated on an iron throne and Persephone on a silver one. The thrones were equal in size and strength, but while Hades’s was plain and austere, Persephone’s was ornate, decorated with jewels cunningly set in the shapes of vines and flowers.

Hades looked much as Sisyphus remembered him, grim-faced and – there was no other word for it – deathly serious. Persephone, however … Sisyphus wondered if this was the same goddess he had met on the shores of the Styx, all those years ago. The goddess he had met then had been sprightly and smiling, a single bright flower in a dead garden. This goddess was serene and matronly, and seemingly as serious as her husband.

There was no time to waste. Sisyphus dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “O Rich One, O Spring Maiden—”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

The pronouncement that came from Hades’s lips was perfunctory, almost bored. Yet all the same, Sisyphus found that he could no longer speak.

“Sisyphus of Ephyra; son of Aeolus of Thessaly and Enarate; father of Glaucus, Ornytion, Thersander, Almus, and Porphyrion; husband of Merope; onetime King of Ephyra,” Hades said, “you stand before us accused of impiety, sacrilege, and hubris.”

Sisyphus wanted to protest, but still he could not speak.

“Were your crimes against mortals, you would of course be permitted to speak in your own defense,” Hades continued. “But your crimes were not only against the gods, they were against the gods in this room. Or would you deny it?” Hades raised an eyebrow. “Would you attempt to deny that you tricked me into imprisoning myself with chains of death? That when Hermes came to demand my release, that you attempted to negotiate, as if speaking with the emissary of a mere mortal? That you resisted the wrath of the Twelve for three whole days before admitting your fault and accepting your punishment?”

Sisyphus opened his mouth … but what use would it be?

Closing his eyes, he shook his head.

“A wise action. Yet your crimes did not end when I was freed. As soon as you were brought to the shores of the Styx, you embarked upon another stratagem … this one to ensnare my wife.”

Now that was not _precisely_ true; Sisyphus had thought that Hades, as a husband and a king himself, would be more likely to see the “justice” in his cause and send him back to Ephyra to “put things right.” He hadn’t expected to be ignored, and he still considered his quick thinking and quicker speaking when Persephone appeared on the shores to be his greatest triumph.

“Of course,” Hades continued, “my wife in her own way is the cleverest of all of us in this room, and you did not so much trick her as fall right into her hands.”

Sisyphus’s eyes popped open and he stared open-mouthed at the queen.

And in that moment, he _saw_. Saw that the sprightly flower maid and the dignified queen truly were one and the same. Saw that sweetness and guile were not mutually exclusive, and that a clever mind could be the same as a kind one.

He saw, too, that the sweet-faced Goddess of Spring had at some point reached out to hold the hand of the dread King of the Dead, and neither seemed inclined to let go anytime soon.

“You agreed when you took the asphodel flower that once you did so, your soul would belong to the Underworld forever,” Persephone said. Her voice was the same as the flower-maiden he’d spoken to on the shores of the Styx. “So you will not drink of the Lethe; you will never be reborn into the mortal world. Instead, you will stay here and serve us.”

Cold dread overtook his entire soul. Sisyphus could only bow his head.

He’d traded thirty years of life for an eternity in the Underworld, and what was worse, he hadn’t even seen the trap until he’d fallen into it.

“And we have a great and important task for you, Sisyphus,” Persephone continued.

Sisyphus’s gaze snapped up.

Persephone waved her free hand, and an image of a steep, stony hill appeared before them. At the bottom of the hill sat an enormous round boulder. “For centuries, the Stone of Sorrow has stood at the base of the Hill of Striving in Tartarus. Your task, Sisyphus, will be to push the stone to the very crest of the hill.”

With another wave of her hand, the image disappeared.

“That—that is my task, Grave Queen?” Sisyphus asked, startled that he was even able to speak.

“It is.” Persephone nodded.

“My only task?”

“Indeed. Once the stone comes to rest at the crest of the hill, your eternity will be yours to spend as you choose.”

“Well! Then—then I thank you, Grave Queen, and you, Rich One. I assure you, I will—”

Hades waved his hand, and once again, Sisyphus could no longer speak. “Spare us your gratitude. Go, your task awaits.”

The doors behind him opened and a pair of old women with snake hair and bat wings swept in, grabbed Sisyphus by the elbows and frog-marched him out of there. Sisyphus should have been terrified to be manhandled by the dread Erinyes, but he was too ebullient to notice.

Push a rock up a hill! That was _it_? He’d tricked the King of the Dead, defied the Twelve for three whole days, bamboozled the Goddess of Spring, and _that_ was his punishment? Clearly, they thought that consigning him to the Underworld for eternity was punishment enough. Well, he would show _them_. As soon as he had the rock at the top of the hill, he would …

He wasn’t entirely sure what he would do, but that didn’t matter. He would get the lay of the land before he planned his next move.

The Erinyes dragged him through the Mourning Fields, past the Asphodel Meadows and bundled him on a boat on the Phlegethon. Sisyphus ought to have been terrified to see a river of fire, but, well, he was dead, so what could fire do to him?

The boat sped down the river, down and down and down, so far down that Sisyphus wondered if they would ever reach an end or if to spend forever on this boat would be his true punishment.

But eventually they reached a dark cavern, lit only by the flames of the river. Sisyphus could see high city walls before him, a huge gate surrounded by adamantine columns, and—was that a hydra?

He had little time to look. The Erinyes picked him up from the boat and hurried him through the gates – he heard them slam shut behind him – deep into the city. Now, for the first time, Sisyphus felt fear. Screams surrounded him on all sides, and whether he looked to the left or the right, he saw something to disquiet him. There was Tantalus in his pool, reaching for grapes only to have them pull back from his grasp. There was Ixion tied to his flaming wheel, shrieking as he was spun round and round. And there were the Danaïdes, forever carrying water-jugs, striving in vain to fill a bath with no bottom.

But Sisyphus wasn’t like them. He hadn’t been given an impossible task. He’d been given a simple, straightforward task.

… Hadn’t he?

Worry grew as he stumbled through the dark streets of the city, the Erinyes pushing him to go faster and faster with every step. If only he knew what was before him—the waiting was surely more torment than any punishment, no, _task_ could ever be—

Then, suddenly, the Erinyes dragging Sisyphus stopped, and he had perforce to stop as well.

There was the boulder, and there was the hill – all exactly as he’d seen in the vision the goddess set before him. Sisyphus breathed a sigh of relief. This wasn’t an impossible task, then; he’d just push this boulder up the hill and—

“Hurry up!” an Erinys shrieked. A scourge raked across Sisyphus’s back, and he cried out.

“I’m going, I’m going!” he shouted to the Erinys, shaking his first at the sky—but not for long. The dreadful bat-winged creature flew down to make another pass, and Sisyphus barely had time to duck.

Best to get to it then. The sooner he got this boulder pushed up the hill, the sooner he’d be out of here. Sisyphus spit on both his hands, rubbed them together, placed them on the boulder, and began to push.

This … was surprisingly easy. The boulder was preternaturally round, child’s play to roll; the hill-surface startlingly smooth. He’d have this rock up the hill in ten minutes, twenty at the most, and then—

Sisyphus stumbled. The boulder jolted from his grasp, and down the hill it rolled.

Sisyphus stared.

“Hurry! Hurry!” an Erinys shrieked. Once again, Sisyphus had to duck to avoid the brass-tipped scourge.

He hurried down the hill. The boulder was right where it had started. Once again, he got behind it, placed his hands on it, and pushed.

Once again, getting up the hill was easy. Until he sneezed.

The boulder jolted from his grasp, and down the hill it rolled.

Sisyphus stared.

“Hurry! Hurry!” an Erinys shrieked. Once again, Sisyphus had to duck to avoid the brass-tipped scourge.

He hurried down the hill. The boulder was right where it had started. Once again, he got behind it, placed his hands on it, and pushed.

Once again, getting up the hill was easy. Until the boulder hit a pebble.

Once again, the boulder jolted from his grasp, and down the hill it rolled.

Once again, Sisyphus stared.

Once again, “Hurry! Hurry!” an Erinys shrieked. Once again, Sisyphus had to duck to avoid the brass-tipped scourge.

Once again, he hurried down the hill. Once again, the boulder was right where it had started. Once again, he got behind it, placed his hands on it, and pushed.

Once again, getting up the hill was easy. Until Sisyphus stubbed his toe on the boulder.

Once again, the boulder jolted from his grasp, and down the hill it rolled.

Once again, Sisyphus stared.

Once again, “Hurry! Hurry!” an Erinys shrieked. Once again, Sisyphus had to duck to avoid the brass-tipped scourge.

Once again, he hurried down the hill. Once again, the boulder was right where it had started. Once again, he got behind it, placed his hands on it, and pushed.

Once again, getting up the hill was easy. Until—

Until—

Until—

_UNTIL_ —

“Hello, Sisyphus.”

For the first time in – days? Years? Centuries? – Sisyphus paused in his labors.

He turned around.

There was Persephone.

Sisyphus could say nothing. He knew who she was. But the flowery compliments and honeyed words that might have sprung to his tongue once upon a time had fled him. His world had shrunk to pushing, and stumbling, and watching, and ducking, and pushing, pushing, _pushing_ —

“Here,” she said, holding a cup out to him.

Sisyphus blinked. What was he to do with this?

“Drink,” she said, and though her voice was kind, it commanded. Sisyphus took the cup and drank.

He gasped when he was done. Persephone shot him a small smile. “Better?”

He nodded, roughly wiping his mouth with his bare arm. The King of Ephyra would never have done that before a lady, certainly not a goddess. But Sisyphus had not been the King of Ephyra in a long time.

“I probably shouldn’t be talking to you, but,” she laughed, “I’m afraid curiosity has finally gotten the better of me. Sisyphus, where did you put the key?”

Key? What key? Key to what?

His confusion must have shown on his face, for Persephone explained. “When you chained my husband in your cellar, all those years ago, you locked him up and hid the key. Where did you put it? I searched every nook and cranny of your palace for four nights running; I made it look like thieves had broken in, but I couldn’t find it.”

The key!

Memory came rushing back. Clicking the lock closed, watching as the red-faced, drunk King of the Dead sobered up in a split second. Taunting Hades himself. Scampering up the stairs, barely holding back his laughter, thinking himself to be _so clever_ , knowing that no one would _ever_ find this key, believing that he’d _won_ , that he’d tricked the gods themselves and soon would have them at his mercy.

Gods, what a fool he’d been!

Sisyphus shook his head. “The—the key.” He stammered over the words, how long had it been since he had last spoken? “I … in my hall, there was a statue of Prometheus. I put the key on its head, and then I put the cap of darkness over the head of the statue.”

Persephone’s eyes widened. “The empty alcove! I wondered why there was one alcove with no statue in it. Silly me, I should have investigated more closely.” She beamed at him. “Well, thank you, Sisyphus. It might be a silly thing, but it really was driving me mad. I’ll let you get back to it now.” She waved at him and turned to go.

No. No, he couldn’t let her, not now, not when he finally realized—

“Lady, wait!”

No Erinys came screeching down to beat him bloody. Hades did not appear before him, bident in hand, ready to skewer him for daring to speak to his wife so. Almighty Zeus did not strike him down with lightning for addressing his daughter with such disrespect.

No, nothing happened at all, except Persephone turning back around and asking, “Yes?”

Sisyphus had to press on; he would not be able to rest if he did not get an answer to his question. “It was you, wasn’t it? It was you who found Hades; it was you who spurred the gods to wrath; and when we met on the shores of the Styx – you knew what I was doing the whole time, didn’t you?”

“Oh, it wasn’t all me. I had help. I never could have managed half the things the Twelve did to plague you on my own. But I certainly found Hades and told the gods where he was – and you’re quite right, I knew exactly what you were attempting to do when we met on the Styx.”

Sisyphus swallowed and licked his lips. “Lady—no one ever said that you were clever.”

Persephone shrugged. “There are lots of things people don’t know about me.” She tilted her head to one side. “Is that all?”

“Yes—yes, lady. Than you.”

She laughed. “Oh, it’s no trouble. After all, you assuaged my curiosity. One good turn deserves another. Farewell, Sisyphus, and good luck with your labors.”

“Thank you.”

And that was that. Persephone turned back to the more pleasant parts of the Underworld, and Sisyphus turned back to his labors.

But this time, he smiled.

He was in Tartarus, punished eternally for his hubris. His very name had become a synonym for the futile and the frustrating. Most mortal men did not even remember what he did, though all would remember how he was punished for it.

But none of that mattered. For now Sisyphus knew that whatever else had happened, he had at least fallen to a worthy opponent.

And that was more than enough to win him peace.


End file.
